Lydia: I havent let myself do that, so I wouldnt know.
She wants to be good for me but feels she doesnt know what I want.
I tell her how Maisie understands me, and I know her. We instinctively understand and accept each other. This, of course, saddens Lydia.
Sometimes, I say, it feels like you dont understand me. You dont like how I behave. You wish I were another way.
Yes, she says. I agree with that. But I also resent that you compare me with others.
I say, I should be cherished every day.
Lydia suddenly laughs, agreeing. And there is a melt between us.
21 E-mail from Maisie: she woke up last night to singing. She went downstairs and found three sailors in her Lemarchant Road kitchen, with jugs of liquor and food. They cheered her. They were Portuguese. She had to yell at them and they were confused. She pointed to the door, but they would not go. So she called the police.
Today, in court, she found out that the house she has rented used to be a brothel. The Portuguese come every year. They didnt know. Their ship was leaving port today and Oliver, who represented them, asked her to drop the charges. She did, on one condition: they make a plaque that says, in three languages, This House Is Not a Brothel. The men agreed.
22 If I could hand deliver on this first day of spring. From my hand to Lydia’s. Hold her shoulder as I give her a simple message. If I could roll it into a thread and slip it in her ear as she sleeps in her bed. My last line would be . . . No, I would have no last line. There would be an ellipsis. There are no last words. Only words that belong in no last line. There are end words such as possibility and promise.
23 Called Maisie to get a book. She says she admires Max because he persists in doing what he thinks is right (integrity) whereas Oliver does what people seem to expect.
Me: People expected he’d stay with you.
Maisie comes from a deep-seated philosophy, you can depend on her to say a point of view. And I realize I dont come from there, I’m too sceptical of a truth. I argue not from a position, but from an example.
A sheet of thick plastic is wrapped in the bare oak on Long’s Hill. Max says the denser the wood, the harder it is for leaves to unfurl. Oak are the last to bloom. Beyond the oak the brick church steeple with green copper peak. I like looking at this spire while I write. I’m going to look up the kirk’s style. Squinches in spires.
24 Maisie says she was washing dishes one day. And she slipped the ice cubes from a whisky glass into the dishwater. It was Oliver’s glass, from when he was on the phone with his brilliant paralegal student. Maisie held those cubes of ice under the warm water, held them fiercely, and noticed her wedding ring on the windowsill. That’s when she decided to leave Oliver.
25 Lydia offers me the dental floss. She brings me coffee and sliced oranges to bed. I love the way she pours coffee. She sits on my lap while on the phone to Daphne. Daphne says the rumour is Oliver got his student pregnant.
Where did you hear that?
Daphne: You hear everything in social services.
Lydia, to Daphne: Craig Regular is in town. I saw him last night. He’s looking great.
When she hangs up the phone, I say, You never told me that Craig was in town, or that you saw him.
She says, All your best friends are women.
I say, All your best friends are men.
That’s not true, she says.
Me: Well, maybe women are easier to be best friends with.
26 I’m crouched at Lydia’s car door in the dark, having thanked Max and Daphne for the rhubarb pie and coffee. Lydia says I love you and I say, But I can’t get your door shut. She drives home with my arm across her midriff holding the door handle and she asks if I’m loving her a little more today.